To say this moment has been long-awaited by netizens in Africa is an understatement: it's sending the continent into a frenzy. But what's the impact actually going to be?

To find out, I asked Erik Hersman, the author of the Afrigadget blog and founder of crisis information service Ushahidi - and as good as expert on the internet in east Africa as you're likely to find.

"First, it will drive down business costs for organisations," he told me by email. "I'm hearing of business high-speed internet costs dropping from $5000 per month to around $500-1000 now. That's pretty significant in and of itself."

"Second, hosting can now feasibly be done in east Africa, instead of having to host all of the apps and services on European or American servers."

What about the knock-on effect on mobile development? We've heard a lot about successful mobile innovation in Kenya and other countries – payment system Mpesa is the most famous example, but there are others too. Would a sudden boost for internet service mean people turned away from mobile development? Hersman didn't think so.

"The main reasons for that are that it's lack of regulation that allows services like Mpesa to come into being," he said. "But, beyond that, it's also about what most consumers have. Yes, due to costs dropping we'll see more people getting access to the internet. However, the devices that people have access to on the personal level are still rudimentary (Nokia 1100-type) mobile phones. It's not like those are going to all be thrown out and everyone upgrade to data phones all of the sudden. So, entrepreneurs will continue to build apps for those uses first."

He also noted that the Seacom installation hasn't been without controversy: nobody is yet clear whether increased access will drive down prices for ordinary people, and the company isn't releasing the names of cooperating ISPs – much to the chagrin of web-heads.

"That lack of transparency is causing a bit of a problem," he said. "Kenyans tend to be great conspiracy theorists, so whispers of collusion and price fixing are already being bandied about."